We Began There and Converged Here

An exhibition of printed art works.

Alex Campaz

My recent drawings and prints deal with landscapes woven through fractured sequences. Inspired in large part by everyday imagery and symbols from dreams and occult books, the end product is a kaleidoscope of every day desires and anxieties.

silk-screen on prepared panels

Julian Gatto

Mobility and portability have become an important part of my work. Along with a watercolor box, I can take a piece of paper with me and paint where ever I want. Luckily, water is still available for free in most parts of the world.
http://www.muitotosto.com/julian/

ukiyo-e woodblock print

Maki Yamaguchi

There are two things I love about printmaking--process and accidents. The longer and more difficult the process is, the bigger satisfaction I get from the finished piece. And accidents give unintended effects which I can never create in any other media because I'm a control freak. The first tornado consists of 14 colors, and the second one has 21 colors. There will be a third and last sequence to finish the whole story, but I haven't even started yet. The two prints took long time and a lot of energy, but I'm happy that they turned out somehow different and a lot better than I had thought they would be.

I don't know if my Japanese background has any effects in my image making, but I always make things not because I want to tell something, but to see something. There is no message or purpose; it's all about the images that please my eye .

silk-screen print on sommerset paper

Alfredo Garcia

Maps, aerial photographs and microscopic imagery, namely of germs and insects, are all my starting points. The infinitesimal realms of organisms compel me to envision the powerful and sometimes harrowing realities they are capable of unleashing. Coastlines, farmlands and oceans are smashed and weaved into these microscopic visions to form idiosyncratic microcosms. Out from under the vast realm of existence and the uncertainty of creation, these necessary aggregates are my preferred form of catharsis.
At no point of inception was there a conscious limitation of expression in these pieces. Instead, there are recurring tendencies and dominating aspects. We see these best aerially; namely the tightly compressed lumped structures which are apparitions of my brand of organizing principles. Transmutation is a theme of the series. The recurring structures are subject to transmutation. Their progressive flux denotes the most mysterious aspect of painting: intuition. Intuition is both an excuse and essential aspect of working with fluctuating images until they properly congeal and ultimately grip.

etching

Aurora De Armendi

My work is intended to submerge the viewer in a poetic space, often process oriented. Through the investigation of process, I feel I witness a fading beauty, allowing images to germinate naturally and ideas to develop of their own accord. Belonging, displacement, duality and time are themes that I find myself returning to and exploring repeatedly, even if at first it is unnoticeable particularly when expressed in an abstract visual language.

lithography and woodblockprint on kitikata paper

Caitlin Gianniny

I work across a wide range of media, including photography, printmaking, performance, video and sound installation. My work addresses issues of memory as well as the examination of social norms and how strange they really are, everywhere. My print Fashionably Bandaged Woman is one of a series of prints made using illustrations from a 1950s Red Cross Manual as well as a found text. They, like many of my other works explore hand-written text as a physical representation of a mental space.

silk-screen and xerox transfer collage on kitikata paper

Zoe McCloskey

My work is informed by an exploration of psychological obstacles and aspirations that particularly affected my generation of 1st world suburbanites born into the 80’s and 90’s.
Feelings of isolation and disillusionment, overexposure to history and information, a deep understanding of sarcasm and irony, corporate misappropriation of counter-culture, the effects of psychotropic pharmaceuticals, and cynicism are all examples of obstacles.

The desire to achieve a real, sincere, or meaningful experience, the desire to believe in something, and the desire to escape to a place that is innocent without becoming complacent or ignorant are all aspirations particular to my generation.

woodblock print on silk tissue wheat-pasted to wall

Firelei Baez

My artwork consists of paintings, drawings, and prints that regard my physical self, my personal history, and Caribbean folklore. Afro-Caribbean folklore allows for malleability in the creation of the self, but I find my status as an Afro-Latina in the United States static and limiting in comparison. In response, I try to disrupt the current system of social categorization through the creation of characters that refuse definition. My artworks depict characters of indeterminate race, signified by their facial features, colorless skin, and hairstyles representative of ethnic hair. These men and women are interacting with predatory birds and finches: eating them, being plucked by them, admiring them, fighting them, scared of them, and unaware of them. In Caribbean folklore any part of the body represents the soul, especially hair. It is necessary to protect ones soul by making sure that any hair that is shed does not wind up in the hands of others. If a bird picks up ones hair and incorporates it into it’s nest, then the person’s soul is placed in limbo. I use this symbolically loaded scenario, among others, to metaphorically illustrate the multiplicities and hypocrisies that make up the current discussion about race and class within popular culture.

silk-screen on paper wheat pasted to wall with collage

Leah Hebert

My work strives to create a world that is both playful and intrusive, provoking the viewer to scrutinize the way in which we perceive and consume media. Influenced by Victorian illustrations, early twentieth century medical illustrations, and images from mainstream media, I create prints using lithography, intaglio, silkscreen and relief. Immersed between a chimera of absurdity and glimpses of reality, the women portrayed in my work are implored to question their relationship between female liberation and female beauty. Vulnerable to an increasingly complicated set of social codes set before them by a demanding capitalist culture, they are haunted by the shadows of their world as they sift through mounds of propaganda to find their voice. Symbiotic relationships such as the fast food and diet industry are juxtaposed with beauty products or invasive procedures meant to beautify women. The youthful model enslaved to her body displaces the happy housewife grounded to the domestic sphere. Freedom for “women of cover” as one of the many means of justifying the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is challenged as the rhetoric of freedom becomes distorted and is no longer defined in terms of civil rights, but as consumerist rights. Women’s sexual freedom thus becomes commodified and is reduced to misogynistic ideals, leaving us to question state of the advancement of women’s rights.

lithography, silk-screen and fusioned silk-tissue

Amy Westpfahl

Incorporating a history of collective art practice and activist politics, Amy’s work often addresses issues related to social, political and economic ideas; the work challenges the conventional aesthetics in art making by walking a fine line of what is considered art or activism. The concept for the work is often sought outside of or constructed beyond the studio, found in a world where the ideas can be encountered. The intention of the work is to transcend the usual platform in which, art is viewed and or displayed, to engage the viewer through participation, and to expand the function of the work by taking it beyond the institution. Using the artwork to create visibility or awareness of the idea, the hope is that the institution will lead the ideas back out into the world where they were discovered possibly extending a dialogue about the subject.

The Fall of the Red Velvet Rope
soft ground and spit-bite etcing on sommerset paper

Reed Burgoyone

silk-screen on paper

Scott Nobles

silk-screen on paper mounted

Ronny Quevedo

My back-centro, my seamstress, my big boss, my personal thunder, mi medio del medio mundo; it’s Grolier’s encyclopedia, Topps baseball card gum, the scent of mildew, lips stained with wine, the punctum, Philosophy of the Criminal Mind, alchemy, sunlight on Madison Avenue, El Dorado, busted piñatas, and the Egyptian wing that constitute high and low.

From colloquial to commercial, language to logo the interest is in exposing and retaliating against the construction of what, not who, we are.

Dreamt i was a poet (ode to Miguel Piñero)

silk-screen on paper